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Interesting article in Wine Business.com last week by Cyril Penn about how big data can unlock direct-to-consumer (DTC) potential and boost sales. There was a lot of good information in the article, some of which I will go into at a later date. Today I am focusing on some of the statistics about wine consumers that were discussed in the article.

1. Wine consumers are dramatically more affluent than the average U.S. consumers.

57% of wine consumers have a net worth of over 1 million dollars, compared to 12% of the average U.S. consumer.

2. 71% of DTC revenue comes from 30% of the customers.

…Every customer matters but a lot of money is coming from the very top segment.

3. Younger women gain parity with men in wine purchasing.

This information should get you thinking about who your marketing and how your promotional materials are geared to. Historically wineries focused their marketing on male customers.

4. 42% of DTC customers live less than 150 miles away from the winery, most live farther away.

Are you analyzing your customer base by zip code to find out where most of your customers live? Do you have concentrations of customers in certain areas or zip codes? This analysis will affect your marketing and event planning? It is a great tool for planning more successful and profitable events, promotion and advertising.

5. Discover the other interests of your customers.

Wine consumers are more likely to be skiers, play tennis, support the arts and they tend to subscribe to financial newsletters. This should also affect your marketing and events.

These few statistics can lead you to many more questions, generate analysis and marketing ideas that can make your winery grow. Whether you are a large or small winery there are things you can put into play that will make your business more successful and your customers feel more connected to your winery.

Important points that many businesses fail to consider when they are sending out information to customers, whether that information is through social media, emails, text or even through the mail:

Will customers be interested in this?

How much spare time do recipients have to focus on my interactions with them?

Are they being overrun with messaging from other companies that is very similar to mine?

Here are some ideas of how to get your customers more engaged with your emails, social media posts, etc.

Know your customers: If you are keeping up-to-date records of your customers likes and dislikes (including how they want to be contacted), tailor these interactions to their needs, wants and desires.

Segmentation: You will need to segment your customer records by the interests of your customers, what they buy and what resonates with them. You will also have to put some time into getting this information from your customers. Though the time you spend will pay dividends. This is especially true of your best customers. Start with the top ten customers. Once you have got all the information for these customers move on to the next ten until you have at least 100 (depending on the size of the customer list).

Perseverance: It may take time, though once your customers realize that you only send them information that will make a difference to them and their lives, they are more likely to read it and respond.

Response: Quickly respond to all comments and questions that come to you through social media posts, emails or by phone. Whether the responses are positive or negative it’s important that you show your customers that they are important to you. In the case of social media respond to all positive and negative comments online, though you may wish to take additional response to negative comments offline if the problem is not one that can be ironed out easily. Once the problem is successfully handled, ask the customer to go back on social media to say that everything was taken care of.

Know Your Competition: Select similar businesses to yours and sign up for their mailing/social media or email list. You need to know what they are sending to their customers so you can differentiate your business from theirs.

By making your customers as important to you and to your business as you are to them, your business will grow and become more successful.

Think of different ways to wish a happy Mother’s Day to mothers and others. For example, if you are a winery that produces and sells Cabernet Sauvignon, wish happy Mother’s Day to Sauvignon Blanc, the wine that is the mother of Cabernet Sauvignon. Do the same on Father’s Day with Cabernet Franc.

Many people have May birthdays.

Invite your customers to join you for their birthday, with any customer who comes in during the week of his/her birthday gets a birthday surprise. I will leave it up to you to decide on the surprise, though it could be a flower, chocolate, preferential pricing, a coupon for their next visit, or access to a special offering or person – just to name a few.

There is something special going on every day in May. Here are a few “special” days during the month of May: Today (May 3rd) is Paranormal Day, Garden Meditation Day, School Nurse Day, Lumpy Rug Day (really!), for example.

Looking at a calendar for May shows me that every day in May has at least three special designations and some days have up to seven “special” designations. Some of them are important, such as May 28th which is Amnesty International Day and some less so, May 27th Cellophane (Scotch) Tape Day.

By the way, May 25th is National Wine Day, so you have plenty of time to get ready for that.

A tip of the glass from me to you, and have a great day no matter what you choose to celebrate!

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There are very few times when you are talking to others that you can’t take advantage of marketing your business. I don’t mean hijacking a conversation with a long monolog about your company. Keep your comments brief and make the conversation interesting, leading the person or people you are speaking with to ask you for more information.

For example, when someone asks you what you do for a living, what do you say? Are you specific, “I own a winery” or “I work for a winery,” for example, or do you talk about working for or owning a small business? Then have ready a quick sentence about something the company does that will differentiate it from other wineries. It could be a special event; an uncommon varietal or a charitable association, an interesting location or the way the business is managed.

As with people, all businesses are different. Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find the differences but they are there.

To get to the root of what makes your business different start a list and keep adding to it. Ask your managers, employees, and customers what they think is different about the business. Once you have the list, create short stories of just a few sentences for each point of differentiation on the list. Keeping it short is important, as it’s easy to get carried away when you are talking about something that is important to you, though may not be important to someone else.

If you know your audience you may point out individual differentiations that will resonate with the people to whom you are speaking.

For example, you are out walking your dog and get talking to someone else who is walking his/her dog. What is different about your business that may include the dog? Is the dog the wine club mascot or do you donate a portion of the proceeds to the ASPCA or other animal rescue fund? Knowing this small piece of information may bring this stranger into your winery.

Telling a short story makes your business more memorable and the more memorable you can make it, the better chance you have of getting people who may not know about you pay you a visit and make a purchase.

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Last week we talked about emails and how to make them more effective. We covered in more detail when to send emails. Today we have a few more tips.

Getting Attention: When you send an email, the first thing your customers see on the left hand side is the name of the company or person who sent the email. So why is it that I am still getting emails from companies whose company name is shown on the left hand side and who then repeat the name of the company in the subject line? You are wasting valuable real estate and your best chance of getting readers engaged.

Segmentation: Most businesses have lots of people on their email lists, but they send the same email to everyone. Segment your emails to fit the different categories of customers. Look at how much the customers buy, how often, when and what. Take the top ten or twenty percent of your customers, those who support your business regularly, and send them a different email than the customers who purchase from you occasionally. The email to occasional customers should encourage them to visit you more often and give them reasons to do so.

Personality: Each business has a personality, as do the people in the business. Bring out your personality in your emails. If people are used to having fun when they visit you, add some fun into your emails too. Let your customers see the real you (unless you really are a grump, then let someone else write the email).

Stories: Are you telling stories in your emails? Short stories can captivate visitors. Stories are entertaining and will increase sales. Mention something that happened in the business, for example how you were able to solve a customer’s problem or meet a need. There are lots of different ways to make your emails more enjoyable and interesting for your customers. So don’t stay with the same old thing. Take a step forward.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

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I have been reading a lot lately about sales of wine going down in 2016. With the baby boomers buying less and the thrifty millennials being more cautious about their purchases, it seems that the amount of wine sold over the next few years is expected to go down.

Additionally, the number of wineries throughout North America is expected to climb. This is in part because the wine industry is primarily an industry of passion and not an industry of reason, which means that the number of wineries and vineyards is going to increase and when these people decide to grow grapes or make wine, the first thing on their mind is the product. While following up very closely behind the product should be marketing and sales – it isn’t.

Unfortunately, marketing and sales invariably fall a very distant second to the processes of growing grapes and making wine. I have been teaching wine marketing studies to winery and vineyard owners and employees at various colleges and universities and spoken to enough winemakers and grape growers throughout North America to know that the belief is that if growers and winemakers make a good product, it will sell. That is just not the case.

To stay ahead of the game, as the wine business becomes more and more competitive, it is critical that a clear plan for the marketing and sales of your product should very much be a part of the general plan from the very beginning. If your first thought is that you want to buy a vineyard or open a winery, your second thought should be how the product is going to be marketed and then sold.

I know that marketing and sales plans seem like a lot of work and they can be, but you can start with the basics. If you would like an outline of a simple marketing/sales plan, let me know and I will send one out to you.

A tip of the glass from me to you!

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I was reading a book the other day, the autobiography of a man, Jack Petchey, with whom my Dad was in the Fleet Air Arm (a name for the British Navy air force) in World War II. Mr. Petchey and my Dad were good friends during the war and for a while after the war. Jack went on to be very, very successful and because of his success wrote an autobiography.

Jack Petchey started working at 11 years old for a greengrocer (shop selling vegetables and salad ingredients) in the East End of London, where, he says that he was taught his first lesson in marketing.

When he first started at the greengrocery, he was given, by the owner, a large box of tomatoes and asked to polish half of the tomatoes and not the other half. After he had finished polishing the half of the box that was supposed to be polished he was told to put them into two piles. One pile of tomatoes (the ones that were not polished) were given a lower price, while the tomatoes that had been polished were given a higher price.

Jack asked the owner why the tomatoes were two different prices, at which time the owner told him that some people like to buy cheap and some people like to buy expensive.

While we all know that some people don’t buy if things that are (in their estimation) too expensive, we also know that some people don’t buy if the things that they are considering purchasing are not expensive enough.

Make sure your pricing varies so that you can appeal to both those people that like to get a bargain price and those people who are more comfortable buying something that they fits their ideas of quality and what (in their opinion) is an appropriate price.

Remember: never underestimate people’s willingness to spend money to impress their friends. Whether they impress their friends with how little they spent or impress them with how much they were able to spend on a product.